


are you still you?

by Princex_N



Series: you may not rest now, there are monsters nearby [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxiety, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Psychosis, Schizo Spectrum Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 06:45:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14764616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Here's what Keith is sure of: he's spent the last few hours getting the absolute shit kicked out of him.Here's what Keith is less sure of: his knife is glowing.Here's what Keith is utterly failing to comprehend: the voice coming from behind a mask that says, "The only way this is possible is if Galra blood runs through your veins."





	are you still you?

Keith is pretty sure that the exhaustion from all of the fighting has finally caught up with him. There's not really a whole lot of other explanations for what's going on at this moment, in his opinion. 

Here's what Keith is sure of: he's spent the last few hours getting the absolute shit kicked out of him. He's pretty sure that he's been dreaming, or hallucinating, and the building they're in is slowly starting to fall apart around them. Shiro is standing next to him, and Keith can't tell if this is the real Shiro, or just another hallucination. The fighters in front of him, enormous and threatening, aren't making it any easier for Keith to think. 

Here's what Keith is less sure of: his knife is glowing. It's never done that before, and he would have previously said that it was impossible for it to do so. But maybe this is really happening. Maybe it's even  _meant_ to be happening. He doesn't know, but the light is bright, and he manages to to tear his eyes away to survey the responses of the other people in the room (the other people that may or may not exist), and they seem to be reacting to the light. That would make it real. (Conditionally, because Keith still isn't actually positive that  _they're_ real. That makes the reality check a little more difficult to follow)

Here's what Keith is utterly failing to comprehend: the voice coming from behind a mask that says, "The only way this is possible is if Galra blood runs through your veins." 

Keith is pretty sure that he's concussed, and it takes a moment for the sounds to rearrange themselves into words that he's able to understand. When they finally do start to make sense, he glances down at the warped blade in his hands, and all he can do is burst into laughter. 

He's snickering, hysterical and vaguely unstable even to his own ears, and he can barely catch his breath through the giggling. It's starting to feel too close to a panic attack for comfort. He tries to wrestle himself back under control, but isn't having much luck. 

"This isn't real," he says, running his hands over his face as if shielding his eyes could bring reality back into focus. His words are not a question, they're a certainty. There is no way that this could be real. 

Sure, he has a blade from his mother (who he has never met, who he can't remember) that looks exactly the same as the ones that the Galra of the Blades of Mamora carry, but that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean  _shit_. It's as meaningless as that weird hallucination he'd had when surrounded by quintessence back on that ship. "This isn't real, this is another bizarre hallucination. I'm done. I'm fucking-- I quit." 

Shiro --fake Shiro, not real Shiro-- is giving him that soft concerned look that he (the real him) makes sometimes. "Keith," he says gently, in that same cautious tone of voice. "Keith, this  _is_ real." 

"Nope." Keith is adamant, he has to be. This  _can't_ be real. This can't be real, because if it is (and it's  _not_ , he can't even let himself consider that possibility), if it  _is_ , then he's losing the fucking basis, the singular fucking true fact, that he's ever had. Keith can't fucking deal with that. He can't. He's laughing again, but it sounds too close to sobs. He can't catch his breath. "No.  _Shiro_. This can't... It can't be real. It was  _never real before_."

Some of the blades had begun excitedly removing their masks after Keith's blade had 'awakened'. Now, they exchange uncertain looks, keeping their distance as Shiro creeps carefully forward into Keith's space, his hands held out placatingly. 

"Keith, you need to calm down, alright buddy?" 

No, of  _course_ it isn't fucking alright.  

"Shiro, it wasn't  _real_ ," Keith says, and he  _hates_ how lost and scared his voice sounds. He sounds like a child. He feels like a child, curled up under his bed and scratching at his own skin and pulling at his hair and wondering what it was that made him so different from everyone else. Trying to figure out if he was human or if he wasn't, if he was right, if the weird displaced feeling he'd always felt was because he wasn't human like everyone else was. 

But it hadn't been  _real_. He had learned the word "Delusion" when he was fourteen years old, and he'd known right away that every odd feeling fit into that category perfectly, and that included every stray thought about his unknown mother and own humanity. 

Keith is  _human_ , he has to be. He has to be, because if he isn't, then everything he's ever believed to be real is  _wrong_ , and that's too terrifying and uncertain to try and figure out. If  _this_ is something he's been wrong about, then how many other things are there? How many strange feelings and thoughts he's dismissed as glitches of his brain are solid facts that he should have been listening to? 

And the others? And the others? And the others? How are they going to react to this? How will Allura and Coran react to this? To knowing that Keith is one of the Galra that wiped out their families and species? Maybe they've always known. Maybe that's why they've never liked him, why they've never sat right with him. Maybe they've been planning this from the beginning, maybe they'd hoped that he wasn't strong enough to survive this long. How are they going to react to finding out that he has survived? They are going to hate him. They are going to kill him. 

To go back to the castle is terrifying. To remain here on this ship is equally bad. 

The thought to flee in Red, to leave and stay gone, is sounding pretty good right about now. 

But Shiro's (Real Shiro's?) arm is heavy around Keith's shoulder, pulling him close, and Keith doesn't think he could run even if he wanted to. Maybe Shiro will help keep him safe from the others? But maybe Shiro is just as angry, just as betrayed. The Galra had kidnapped and tortured him. If anyone has justified anger against a species, it's Shiro, and now Keith is  _one of them_ , has always been one of them. 

If Keith has been wrong about his species for this long, what else could he be wrong about? 

If it's turned out that he can't even trust himself, then who  _is_ he supposed to trust? 

How is he ever supposed to feel safe in his own skin ever again? 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm definitely veering way off of canon in this series, and i'm not planning on splitting up / switching around the Voltron crew like the show does, but this episode fit a little too perfectly to not include. But, in case you're wondering, i'm not really making any plans to have Keith break off and join the blades.


End file.
